Deuteronomy 4 - New Catholic Bible (NCB)

Chapter 4

Benefits of Obedience. ¹ Now listen, O Israel, to the statutes and the ordinances that I am teaching you to observe so that you might live and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. ^{2 [a]}You will not add to what I command you, nor will you take away from it, so that you might observe the commandments of the Lord, your God, that I am giving you. ³ Your own eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor, for the Lord, your God, wiped out from all of those who followed Baal-peor from your midst. ⁴ But every one of you who clung to the Lord, your God, is alive today.

⁵ Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the Lord, my God, commanded me, so that you might enter into the land into which you are going and take possession of it. ⁶ Carefully observe them, for the nations will consider this is your wisdom and your understanding. They will hear all these statutes and say, “Truly this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” ⁷ For what nation is as great as we are? Who has God as near to them, as the Lord, our God, is whenever we call upon him? ⁸ What nation is so great that it has statutes and ordinances as righteous as this law that I set before you today?

⁹ Only be careful and watch yourselves closely lest you ever forget the things that your eyes have seen or you let them slip out of your mind. Teach them to your children and your children’s children, ¹⁰ especially about the day that you stood before the Lord, your God, in Horeb, when the Lord said to me, “Assemble the people before me so that I might let them hear my words. They will thus learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and they will be able to teach their children.” ¹¹ You approached and stood at the base of the mountain. The mountain blazed with flames reaching the very heavens, and it was covered with dark clouds and thick darkness. ¹² The Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but you did not see a form. There was only a voice. ¹³ He proclaimed his covenant to you which he ordered you to fulfill, the Ten Commandments, that he wrote upon two tablets of stone. ¹⁴ The Lord then commanded me to teach you the statutes and ordinances so that you might observe them in the land that you were crossing over to possess.

¹⁵ Pitfalls of Idolatry. Therefore, guard yourselves carefully, for you did not see any kind of form when the Lord spoke to you on Horeb from the midst of the fire. ¹⁶ Do not become perverse and make an idol for yourselves of any shape or likeness, whether male or female, ¹⁷ whether it be a land animal or a bird that flies in the skies, ¹⁸ or like something that crawls on the ground or a fish in the waters beneath the earth. ¹⁹ When you look up into the skies and you see the sun and the moon and stars, all the hosts of heaven, do not be enticed to worship and serve the things that the Lord, your God, has assigned to every other nation under the heavens. ²⁰ But as for you, the Lord has chosen you and taken you out from the iron furnace,^[b] out of Egypt, to be a people who are his own possession, as you are today.

²¹ The Lord was angry with me because of you and he swore that I would not cross over the Jordan nor enter the fertile land that the Lord, your God, has given to you as an inheritance. ²² I must die in this land; I will not cross over the Jordan. But you will cross over and take possession of this fertile land. ²³ Therefore, keep guard over yourselves, lest you forget the covenant that the Lord, your God, has made with you and you make an idol in the form of anything that the Lord, your God, has prohibited. ²⁴ The Lord, your God, is a consuming fire and a jealous God.

²⁵ When you have borne children and grandchildren and have dwelt in the land for a long time, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord, your God, and provoking him to anger, ²⁶ I will call upon the heavens and the earth to give witness against you on that day so that you might be utterly obliterated from the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess. You will not remain there long, but you will be totally wiped out.

²⁷ The Lord will scatter you among the nations and only a few of you will survive among the foreign peoples where the Lord has led you. ²⁸ There you will serve gods, the work of human hands, made of wood and stone, which cannot see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

²⁹ But if you seek the Lord, your God, and you strive with all your heart and your soul, you will find him there. ³⁰ When you are in distress and all of these things happen to you in the future, you are to return to the Lord,^[c] your God, and obey his voice, ³¹ and he will not abandon you, nor destroy you nor forget the covenant that he made with your fathers, confirming it to them by oath, for the Lord, your God, is a merciful God.

³² Ask now about the days of old, the former times. From the day that God created humans upon the earth, inquire from one end of the heavens to the other, has anything so great ever happened or has anything like it been heard of? ³³ Has any other people heard the voice of God speak from the midst of the flame, as you heard, and still live? ³⁴ Did God ever go and lead one nation from the midst of another nation by trials, signs, wonders, and battle, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great and wondrous deeds, all things that the Lord, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

³⁵ You were shown these things so that you might come to know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. ³⁶ He had you hear his voice from out of the heavens so that he might instruct you. He showed you his great fire upon the earth so that you might hear his voice from the midst of the flames. ³⁷ It was because he loved your fathers and had chosen their descendants after them that he brought you out of Egypt before him by his great strength. ³⁸ He drove out greater and more powerful nations before you so that he might bring you into their land to give it to you as an inheritance, just as it is today.

³⁹ So today acknowledge it and take it to heart that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below. There is no other. ⁴⁰ You shall obey his statutes and the commandments that I give you today, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, and that you may live long in the land that the Lord, your God, has given you for all time.

⁴¹ Cities of Refuge. Then Moses set aside three cities on the east of the Jordan ⁴² to which anyone who unintentionally killed another person with whom he had not previously been at enmity might flee. He could flee to one of these cities and save his life. ⁴³ They were Bezer,^[d] on the desert plateau, for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the men of Manasseh.

Moses’ Second Address

The Covenant with Israel^[e]

⁴⁴ Introduction. This is the law that Moses set before the Israelites. ⁴⁵ These are the stipulations, the statutes, and the judgments that Moses declared to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt ⁴⁶ and they were dwelling in the valley near Beth-peor on the east of the Jordan, in the land of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and who was defeated by Moses and the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁷ They took possession of his land and also the land of Og, the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who reigned on the east side of the Jordan. ⁴⁸ This land extended from Aroer, that is on the bank of the Arnon River, up to Mount Sion (that is Hermon). ⁴⁹ It included all of the plain on the east side of the Jordan up to the Sea in the Arabah, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah.

Footnotes

1. Deuteronomy 4:2 Observing God’s laws in their entirety secures for us the fullness of life.
2. Deuteronomy 4:20 Iron furnace: referring to Egypt by this term implies the spiritual cleansing “by fire” that the Israelites encountered there. Also used in 1 Ki 8:51 and Jer 11:4.
3. Deuteronomy 4:30 Return to the Lord: reconciliation and restoration of our relationship with the Lord, then as now, hinges on the sinner’s repentance.
4. Deuteronomy 4:43 Bezer: perhaps Umm el-Aniad, to the east of Mount Nebo; Ramoth: perhaps Tell Ramit, east of the Jordan between the Jabbok and Yarmuk Rivers; Golan: perhaps Sahem el-Giolan, east of the Lake of Gennesaret.
5. Deuteronomy 4:44 This discourse existed, in great part, in the first edition of the book. The author hides behind the authority of Moses as he urges Israel to live the covenant to the full.